Monday, August 03, 2009

BangNoos !!

If there is one thing that unites all Bangaloreans it is the nostalgia and longing for the old Bangalore, with its wide roads and great weather.Indeed, that Bangalore is a thing of the past, and the Bengaluru of today is a monster devouring into our resources every day, growing at such a rapid pace that all our resources: roads, basic civic amenities like water, electricity, drainage, housing and pavements are all waiting to burst under the tremendous pressure.
With the political climate looking extremely favourable and a new Government ready to turn the tide around for this city, everythings being turned upside down to get things in order. Large infrastructure projects, each with their own bunch of litigations, integrated plans to improve the city by BBMP, roadworks, drainage works, Parks, Lakes, Power, Water everythings under the scanner.
Bangalore is making its last ditch effort to salvage its image as the Garden City with great weather and great infrastructure.
It occured to me that it would be great to track these changes to Bangalore, as it tries to pull itself out of the muck its stuck in.
It is with this intention that the blog BangNooS!, short for Bangalore Noos(News), was brought to life.
I hope it will meet its objective of tracking the Civic Life in Bangalore and reach out to all those Bangaloreans across the world, attract comments and be a source of active participation from all those who love this Green City.
All your suggestions and comments are most welcome!.

Sunday, August 02, 2009

Now, thread ceremony via Internet

CHENNAI: Overseas Indians who wish to go through the annual ritual of changing the sacred thread (poonool) on August 5 (for Yajur Veda adherents), need not worry about finding a guru to perform the Upakarma rituals.

All they need to do now is to log on to www.traditionalwisdom.in, and they can find a guru to chant the right mantras.

Designed by two Chennai-based persons, S K Sundararajan, who is concerned about preserving the country’s traditions and heritage, and Ramkumar Ramamurthy, an IT professional, the web initiative will help Brahmins living in four time zones — Australia, Middle-East, the USA and Europe — to go through the Anushthanam with ease at home in front of their PCs.

All one has to do to avail of the services of a guru back home is to register with the website (there is no charge) and keep ready the items required for the ceremony, including the sacred thread, at the time specified on theonline portal.

Although there is a school of thought that anyone going out of this Karma Bhoomi (India) loses the eligibility to perform such rituals, this initiative provides an opportunity for all Brahmins to perform Upakarma all over the world even if finding a guru to chant the mantras in their area is a stupendous task.

Details about the day’s events are available on the website, which also seeks a purely voluntary donation as vadhiyar dakshinai ( a token for the services performed by the guru) and for continuing its research and service in preserving the Indian heritage.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Swoopo seems to have got it right

The concept is not new or novel, I am sure we may have seen it in one form or the other. But swoopo may have got the execution just right. The potential the site offers is amazing and the numbers once you start crunching them are mind boggling.

Its so simple in concept that you will hit yourself in the head for not doing it yourself. :)
But then its always the case after its been done by someone. Check out Swoopo here.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Unlocked iPhone 3GS is not Unlocked after all!!!

Earlier this year when Apple announced that the unlocked version of the iPhone was available, I thought I could grab one at last. But with the new iPhone 3GS in the offing at that point I decided to wait it out.
So last week I went to the nearby Apple Store with grand plans of picking up my iPhone. Apple ofcourse had other plans for me. I was told that even though the iPhone was available unlocked for $699 only, I could still use it only with an AT&T network. And further, it was locked to the geography as well.
That would mean I would not be able to use that unlocked iPhone, that i would have paid $699 for, with Apple Partners in other parts of the world :T Mobile in UK or Hutchison in India for example.
So what is Apple's idea of an unlocked phone?
According to the guy at the Apple store, the unlocked iPhone caters to people who would like to gift someone with an iphone but without a data plan.That person would ofcourse still have to have an AT&T plan to use the iphone!!
Somebody's got something wrong here. Apple, come on!!
The Apple store i went to is in St Johns Town Center, Jacksonville, Florida.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Bangalore needs a few Quick Wins!!!

A few decades ago, a mention of Bangalore would have extracted comments like nice town, peace ful town, pensioners paradise etc. Go back just a few years, and Bangalore earned itself new adjectives like IT City, Silicon Valley of India. It even managed to add itself to the Oxfored dictionary as a verb.

Today, the mention of Bangalore, will only generate clamouring for Infrastructure, roads, pollution and so on.

But you may think this is despite the fact that Bangalore has quite a few Mega projects being rolled out. But this is not so. I feel this is because of the fact that Bangalore has so many Mega infrastructure projects that are going on together, with no end in sight.

The only win Bangalore has to show is the International Airport, which was itself delayed by several decades.

What Bangalore needs is a cohesive Mega Plan, which includes all the large Mega projects like the Metro, and several small projects.

The government has to bear in mind that people can put up with only so much. If we wait for all the Mega Projects to end, it may be too late and Bangalore may lose its stature as the IT Capital to nearby cities or even countries.

It is important that a small win is planned every 6 months, that people can celebrate. It will earn the government the support and backing it requires from the public over the next 5 years.

The plan to move the Race Course outside the city and building a World Trade Centre means yet another mega project that will not have anything to show for 3-4 years. Where as converting the Race Course to a Park, can be a quick win. It will also give Bangalore much needed lung space in the heart of the city.

Similarly, the Metro will take a few years to complete. However, something like a mono rail may be easier to implement. Kicking this off in parallel, will ensure a few monorail successes in between every phase of the Metro. This will give the public, a much needed boost while Bangalore undergoes this phase of rapid transformation.

We will get a National ID Card Again!!

The move to invite the Infosys Co-Chairman Mr. Nandan Nilekani to take charge as Chairperson of the Unique Identification Authority of India, in the rank of Cabinet Minister is indeed a very promising move and augurs well for the future of this nation.

Now, this is certainly not the first time that we have set out on the task of issuing a National Identity Card, but its certainly the first time that we seem to be involving the right people to get the task done.

This is certainly a huge challenge and making it a reality will certainly require a lot of conviction and drive.

The possibilities, once this is a success are innumerable, from improved security, better controlling and tracking of financial transactions, control over black money, better and more effective rollout of subsidies by reducing overhead and leakage to name a few. In general it will give the government the ability to link actions to consequences. This is a necessity in a huge country like ours that can otherwise go berserk.

But there are several issues like authentication, validation, duplication and roll out to such a huge population.

Today there are several solutions that technology offers to solve some of these problems. The use of biometrics - fingerprints, retina scans etc can ensure that we avoid some of these issues.

The other issue is Bureaucracy. To get anything in our country from a Ration card to a passport or anything that is a necessity, will mean having to deal with all the babu's enroute. We have to find an alternate route to this until a basic level of integrity gets ingrained within our social sensibilities. We should consider having a public-private partnership, where in the private partner would be responsible for the actual rollout, biometrics etc. The database itself can be maintained by the government for obvious security reasons. The idea is to somehow solve this problem, however that may be.

The other issue is the type of rollout. We seem to have been obsessed, previously, with issuing physical cards with chips that hold all the information. The problem I have with this is with the cost of implementation this will entail and the risk to security.

a) Supplying physical cards with chips are costly.
b) People tend to lose things. And every loss will mean replacing the card, which will translate to additional costs and overheads.
c) Handing over cards with chips provides a window for a security breach.

We do not need cards. People just need to know the number that will identify them. They can chose to memorize it, write it down or use any method they may deem fit.

Challenges are plenty, but under Mr Nandan Nilekani's leadership, this is a success story thats waiting to be scripted.
Jai ho!

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Nandan@TED

Some very valid points brought out in Nandan's speech at TED.com. Click here to watch this speech.

HTC Magic is here

But it looks like its not going to bother Apple... iPhone 3G S it seems will hold its ground after all...
See the review for the HTC Magic here.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

June 7th was Friedman Day

As you probably guess this day is named after Milton Friedman. But what exactly does this day signify? Trust me the answer is just as interesting as the question...

Friedman Day is the day in the year when Americans have earned enough money to pay the full costs of Government. This is calculated by the American Institute of Economic Research and will vary each year.
This year the Friedman Day was on the 7th of July.

This is not the Tax Foundation's Tax Freedom Day, when Americans' aggregate income collectively finances all municipal, state, and national taxes. And this is where the significance lies. Friedman Day includes not just the income from taxes but also other sources of Goverment income. It also includes the money government borrows to pay for spending that isn't covered by tax revenue. So Friedman day will be a few days after the Tax Freedom Day.
Both these could be on the same day when there is no deficit.
The larger the deficit the larger will be the gap between these 2 days. Interesting eh...

With over 1.8 trillion dollars in deficit.. expectedly the gap this year could be wider...

Here's an interesting link on Friedman: http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard43.html

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

iPhone3GS is on its way!! Go sign up Now!!!

And Apple seems to have sealed every hole in the iPhone with the Apple 3GS.

Its got everything you always wanted:
1. Cut, Copy and Paste
2. Video Recording
3. 3 Megapixel Camera with Autofocus.
4. A search feature to search through everything on your phone: Apps, Contacts, Msgs and mails...

And its touted to be atleast 2.5 times faster. Get to you apple store before the queues get too long..

Friday, June 05, 2009

The Palm Pre is out

I wanted this phone to come out so badly, simply because the iPhone was locked to AT&T.
Thats not the case anymore, the iphone is available unlocked. But now the question is, is it good enough? Certainly Not!! is what the Palm pre would retort to that.

Palm has finally cracked open what has been Apple's exclusive domain for the last 2 years.
And they seem to have figured a way to do it all better, setting a whole new standard for touch phones.

Let me summarize the key pros and cons and leave you with cnn's detailed review of the product:

Pro's:
1) Multitasking : You can run more than one app simultaneously.
2) Physical full QWERTY Keyboard that slides out
3) Cut, Copy and Paste. It is rumoured that an Apple release this year will bring this feature to the iphone as well. But for now its something iphone users can only hope for.
4) Multi touch screen - You can pinch to zoom in and out just like the iphone. Its really amazing how its taken so long for others to catch with Apple. But they seem to have finally. It almost seemed like an impossible task at one point. :)
5) Search : For applications or contacts or mails. Thats a cool feature i wish the iphone also had.
6) Integrated GPS
7) You can use the phone as a usb device. This can be painful on the iphone.
to list a few...

Con's:
1) Battery life isn't the greatest
2) No Onscreen keyboard yet.
3) Application catalog is still in beta. Not comparable to iTunes.
4) No video recording. Not yet available on the iphone either.
5) No Support for flash yet.
6) Only 8Gb of storage at present.

Apple likes to place themselves way ahead of competition. So it will be interesting to see what they turn up with. For us its great news!! :)

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Where 2 Tech waves in Google wave

Found this interesting link on the google blog from the brains behind google wave..
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/went-walkabout-brought-back-google-wave.html

Mashable also has a few interesting links on google wave.

Techcrunch has this exciting article as well.

Well.. atleast its creating a lotta noise.. enough to counter all the Bing noise i suppose..

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Time for the next Wave..

If you did begin wondering why you need to have so many different logins for your email, web messenger, social networking, instant messaging, blogging, micro-blogging etc. I guess its time somebody wrapped all this up for you in a single login.

And who better than Google to do it for you. Welcome Google Wave!! Googles biggest launch in a long time.

Google wave is an open source based real-time communication platform, that will bring everything you will ever need onto a single platform from project management to micro-blogging.
Like facebook, it will allow users to develop their own applications which can be embedded freely on any page.
It will be real time, so you can see the message being typed by another user as he types it.
Sounds pretty exciting..
We will have to wait and see if Google will give us a radically new interface experience, getting rid of the "usual" google feel for once.

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Carnatic Music : Understanding it

I have enjoyed carnatic classical music ever since i can remember. Having learnt both violin and vocal for several years it has always been something that has been close to heart and something that I have enjoyed immensely. Having learnt an instrument, decoding the music into its component swaras(musical notes) came naturally to me. And I never really did bother to learn the theory behind this form of music and how it has been structured.

When i was discussing this recently with a friend I realized how much more enjoyable it would be to listen to a concert, if one had the basic understanding even if one had not studied music.

So i decided to go one level deeper, and as i do so put my learnings down here for anyone interested in carnatic music. And hopefully I will learn a little more from some of you the more knowledgeable readers of this blog.

The Basics

The 2 main components of Carnatic music are the Raaga or Melody and the Thaala or the Rhythm/beat.

Raagas are built on top of the 7 basic swaras : Sa, Ri ,Ga, Ma, Pa, Da, Ni denoted in this article by S, R, G, M , P, D, N respectively. These are the western equivalents of Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La & Ti respectively.

S and P are prakruti swaras and have no variations.
The rest of the swaras have many variations, some overlapping over each other as shown below.

By comparison, using the common tonic "C" for a western musician
CarnaticHindustaniWestern E.T.
SaSa"C"
Shuddha Ri"Ri 1"Komal Re"D"
Chatusruti Ri"Ri 2"Shuddha Re"D"
Shatsruti Ri"Ri 3"(Komal Ga)"D"
Shuddha Ga"Ga 1"(Shuddha Re)"D"
Sadharana Ga"Ga 2"Komal Ga"E"
Antara Ga"Ga 3"Shuddha Ga"E"
Shuddha Ma"Ma 1"Shuddha Ma"F"
Prati Ma"Ma 2"Teevra Ma"F"
PaPa"G"
Shuddha Dha"Dha 1"Komal Dha"A"
Chatusruti Dha"Dha 2"Shuddha Dha"A"
Shatsruti Dha"Dha 3"(Komal Ni)"A"
Shuddha Ni"Ni 1"(Shuddha Dha)"A"
Kaisika Ni"Ni 2"Komal Ni"B"
Kakali Ni"Ni 3"Shuddha Ni"B"
Source: Wikipedia


As shown above, the swaras R,G, D and N have 3 variations and the swara M has 2 variations.

Raagas are essentially combinations of these swaras and their variations. Each raaga is represented by an Aarohanam(ascending sequence) and Avarohanam(descending sequence).

There are 72 ragas where the Avarohanam when reversed will give us the Aarohanam. Or the Avarohanam traces the steps back from the Aarohanam.

For ex:
Aarohanam = SRGMPDNS
Avarohanam = SNDPMGRS

These 72 ragas are called Melakarta Ragas. I will explain how we arrive at this number 72 in my next post.


Answer in no more than 4 tweets...

The wired features a very interesting article today: Tweet the new size of thought?.

Twitters success has been a much debated topic in the tech circles. And I am yet to see a convincing argument in favour ot twitter. The way we have kept in touch with our friends and family has seen dramatic changes in the last decade.

From email to chatting to social networks to micro blogging. Yet what is it that twitter has that none of the above can offer?

The thought that a twit could be the new size of thought is at the same time a very scary thought indeed. The pessimists would view this as the beginning of the end of coherent thought. And they would seem right, if you were to look at the seemingly pointless twits that people seem to be sending. However there is an opportunity here.

Historically all our published works have been coherent sets of thoughts that have concluded something based on a lot of serious thinking. However, what about all those incomplete thoughts that do not get published or discussed as they have not been taken to a logical conclusion? Are they lost for ever?

What if these could be taken to completion by someone else? This is what twitter has the potential to do.

The silliest of ideas that would normally not be talked about could become serious discussions on twitter.

However will it go down that path? Will twitter result in the next great invention? I guess only time will tell. But we are ready to capture every thought that occurs to people. Go send that twit out people!!

Its time for IT IN India...

For long this country has earned its name for the high quality IT Services delivered FROM its shores. Its time some of these are delivered IN its shores now.

The global recession has expectedly had its impact on the Indian IT Services industry as well. With the IT Budgets being slashed across the US and Europe, the industry is looking to reinvent itself.

The huge IT Talent pool in the country needs to continue to be productive. What better time than now to deploy this talent pool to develop a NATIONAL IT INFRASTRUCTURE.

Its time we think about Centralized Identities to track citizens. i.e linking licenses, PAN Cards, Bank Accounts, Property documents, Insurance etc to a single identity.

The absence of this ability to track has been the root cause for most of the problems our country faces today. The basic premise that one can get away easily, even if one does not follow a rule, even if it is the smallest or most insignificant like parking in a No Parking Zone, has given us a Freedom thats more akin to what animals experience in the wild.

It is not that we lack discipline. Its just that when we defined "Freedom" for ourselves in this country, we seemed to have forgotten the duties to our fellow citizens that this freedom demands. For 60 years now we have experienced "Freedom" in the truest and wildest sense of the word.

This can change if every action has a consequence, even if it is minimal. And this is not rocket science, it has been done elsewhere. Yes, we do have challenges in terms of scale of implementation and we have to keep this in mind when try to solve this problem.

National Identity Cards with chips in it that store everything from one's DNA are probably not the best solutions for us. Is it feasible to deploy such a solution to a billion people?

What we need is a simple, clean solution. For example, Assign a number to every citizen and make sure that number is mandated on every legal document like a license, property, bank account, PAN Number or insurance.

This solution, in whatever form, if scalable, will be an investment whose ROI can be boundless.

The Bangalore Buzz...

My association with Bangalore dates back to the early 1980's, a quaint lazy little city, a pensioner's paradise. For the futcha's in Bangalore, you may be wondering if I am talking about our Bangalore.

Indeed the city has exploded in the last 10 years. This unprecedented growth coupled with our city planner's myopic vision and bureaucracy have brought the city down to its knees.

This city is still capable of attracting millions of visitors, immigrants and businessmen, with its delectable mix of great weather, great cultural mix and snazzy new businesses, offering something that meets every taste.

However, this may not be for too long. The effects of this growth are beginning to show. And unless we take this seriously, it will not be too long before the damage becomes irreparable.

Over the last 10 years there has been a lot of clamour from the media, the public, social welfare groups and the government about improving bangalore. Sadly though these voices dont seem to be complementing each other. Worse still, they seem to be detrimental to the overall growth of the city. There needs to be a holistic approach to city planning. Yes, there will be many issues and concerns and all steps taken will not benefit everybody, but so long as we make progress we have to push for these initiatives.

For example, we need infrastructure. There is no doubt about that. Now this will not come without losing some green cover. But at the same time, we need to make sure that we are compensating this loss with adequate planning for green cover going forward.

The challenges are immense on all fronts : education, public health, transportation, infrastructure, public amenities and even basics like water and electricity.
And we do not have a bottomless exchequer either. So this demands proper prioritization and planning so that our money is not wasted. We are not a rich nation like the united states. But we can still afford to leave our street lights on during the day time, while the Americans cannot do it still.

Its time we mend our ways. We, the citizens, the government, the bureaucrats, NGO's need to pull up our socks and back each other up to deliver.

Monday, May 04, 2009

Sea World - Orlando

Saturday Morning saw us heading towards Orlando, with tickets to the Sea World. Its a 2 Hour drive from jacksonville to Orlando. Florida can be so lush green that we were left wondering if this wasnt "Gods own Country!!".

Though this was my second trip to the Sea World, I still found it every bit as exciting as the first time. Its amazing to see how the trainers bond with the animals. Its evident that its not just a job for them, its a passion and a love for these animals that goes well beyond the calls of duty. And this is what makes these shows so special. Its simply a must visit place for anyone, kids especially.

We did see quite a few unexpected animals as well, a manatee - closest relative of an elephant apparently, an ant eater, a lemur , a koala, a kangaroo, a camel!!, foxes and cheetah's to name a few.

And ofcourse Shamu, sea lions and the dolphins. A fun day overall.

And do you know why Flamingo's are pink?

he he.. cos they eat shrimps.